


One Way Named

by justanotherStonyfan



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All that time, people thought it was Howard's shadow Tony was living in. It turns out the shadow belongs to somebody...taller, but Steve wants to bring Tony into the light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Way Named

**Author's Note:**

> *Craftily doesn't explain the absence of canon things*

They were all together in one room when the evening began, some charity/publicity thing that Tony was spearheading and SHIELD got involved with handling security for, and Steve suspects that some of the people milling around the place knows who they are. (Aside from the SHIELD agents lining the walls and guarding the entrances.) Because this is a big party.

The Stark International Charity Fundraiser Publicity Thingy, at the Actual Stark Tower In New York (Barring Any Attacks And/Or Invasions)!

Steve sighs. It would be nice to hide away, but the shindig isn't a huge problem. He'd like to be curled up with a book or a sketchpad or be taking advantage of an opportunity to exercise or cook or be anywhere but here. But he can do this, he's done this before. And people aren't really looking at him anyway.

It's obvious people know who Tony is; he's Iron Man, he said so on national television. 

Natasha blends in by being beautiful and attracting attention. She's hanging on Clint's arm tonight but she's in heels and a skintight dress – she's even letting people open doors and get drinks for her. She's playing the delicate flower nobody would suspect for an assassin. 

Clint's the boyfriend who pales in comparison – and he pales in comparison because he wants to, that's how it works. 

Bruce isn't blending in but he doesn't have to. Like Tony, he's a celebrity in his own right, because he's one of the finest minds the world has to boast about – and he's calm right until the moment a waitress gets pushed into him and his black tux/white shirt with her tray of red wine. They all turned to look, just in case, but Bruce just smiled and told the flustered waitress it didn't matter so yeah, he has a handle on it all right.

Thor...isn't here, which is just as well. Somehow, Steve doubts that he'd be able to blend in even slightly. He'd probably try to...oh, liberate the fish in the ornamental tank or something, but the important thing is that, when Pepper (who's still happy to be Tony's right hand even though their relationship is over, a testament to her and yet more proof she's an incredible woman) has finished complimenting his dress uniform – and thank God he was allowed to wear it because he's far more comfortable in that than he would be in a tuxedo – he notices that their illustrious host is nowhere to be seen.

He's on the verge of asking someone but nobody aside from Pepper is likely to know and she's busy talking to somebody...okay, he knows that face, Pepper's talking to a senator so he's going to have to use other means.

Thankfully, he lives in the building and knows his way around, knows how to avoid the partygoers who want to know about his medals (he forgets sometimes that he's not in an age where people just know – this is the age where people scowl at soldiers on the street), and the people who want to know when his last tour was (because who on Earth would believe him if he told them anyway?), to find one of the corridors that leads away from the main hall. It's only one floor up from the lobby, and it's meant for functions, but being in a back corridor lets him find an elevator. 

Being in an elevator lets him talk to JA.R.V.I.S.

“Hey, J.A.R.V.I.S,” he says once the doors are closed, like he's picking up a telephone. “How's things?”

“Good evening, Captain,” J.A.R.V.I.S answers, and Steve feels a tension he didn't know he was carrying start to melt away a little. “Things are surprisingly well-ordered. Can I be of assistance?”

J.A.R.V.I.S doesn't speak to Steve the way he speaks to Tony. Or the way he speaks to anyone else, really. He's clipped, and English – not British, there is no 'British' accent, the place is four separate countries, and Steve's still amused people don't know the difference, but then most people Steve knows haven't spent the time that he has in England – but J.A.R.V.I.S is like that with everybody. 

What's different is the J.A.R.V.I.S talks to Steve like Steve is different, without making it obvious. He always addresses Steve as Captain, or The Captain, and only Captain Rogers very rarely. It's like he's making a bit of a big deal about Steve's rank without drawing attention to that. What's more, his humor is different. When he talks to Tony, he's more sarcastic, and Steve thinks it's hilarious sometimes. But he's always kinder when it comes to Steve, talks to Steve like he might be tired, like he might be anxious, like he might not understand. And the humor he shows Steve is a little more constrained, more...conspiratorial. 

“I was wondering if you knew where Tony was,” Steve says, because the way Steve talks to J.A.R.V.I.S is different, too.

He talks to J.A.R.V.I.S like they're both standing in the same room, like J.A.R.V.I.S is a person standing next to him, mainly because he doesn't like the idea of treating him like a machine. Natasha speaks to J.A.R.V.I.S in clipped tones, J.A.R.V.I.S, please inform Tony we'd like to see him some time before the next geologic age begins, and Tony speaks to J.A.R.V.I.S as though he were a machine except when he doesn't - J.A.R.V.I.S, bring up the schematics for the Mk III until it's Hey, baby, you miss your daddy-o? 

And he supposes it's because, being surrounded by technology, they all know he's an AI and treat him accordingly. He knows for sure that J.A.R.V.I.S doesn't mind. But Steve can't bring himself to do it. To Steve, J.A.R.V.I.S has a voice, he definitely has a personality, and Steve can't make himself talk to J.A.R.V.I.S as anything besides the man who lives in the walls and wires.

“Sir is on the roof,” J.A.R.V.I.S says softly. “Should I inform him you are on your way?”

Steve frowns to himself. “No,” he says slowly, “I...I don't think so. I might not go, is he busy?”

“Sir has been watching the traffic for the past half-hour.”

“Oh,” Steve says. He doesn't exactly want to go up to talk to Tony – they usually end up arguing somehow – but he doesn't think Tony should be away from everybody either. It's not been more than a few months since the Chitauri attack and Tony's been different since then. But even if Tony doesn't want to see Steve, surely he wants to be at the party? “No, if you could just take me up, don't disturb him on my account.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Thanks, J.A.R.V.I.S.”

“You are most welcome, Captain.”

And Steve rides the elevator to the penthouse. He's lucky – Tony hasn't locked him out of the penthouse system, (which is slightly separated to give Tony some well-deserved privacy when he wants it,) and Tony , when Steve spots him, is out on the platform. Steve watches him for a moment or two. 

Tony's standing by the rail, leaning on the rail actually, and he's staring down at the street beneath them – but Steve decides to go out and talk to him anyway. What harm can it really do? The worst thing he can conceive of is that Tony tells him to go away, and he can do that if need be.

“Stark,” he says as amicably as he can manage, and Tony doesn't flinch, he just turns his head a little – enough that Steve can see he's heard – as his shoulder droop.

“Cap'n,” he answers, as he usually does, and he's got a glass of something in one hand.

Steve walks towards him because he hasn't been told not to, and goes to stand next to him because there's no other reason for him to be up here.

“Aren't you going to come back downstairs?” Steve asks softly, watching Tony's expression carefully.

“You're bored already?” Tony says by way of a reply. “I thought they'd be your target audience.”

Steve shakes his head and glances out at the city. “Senators and billionaires and the girls who hang on their arms? That's not for me, Mr Stark.”

“Could have fooled me,” Tony says, and he sounds bored. 

Steve narrows his eyes a little, surprised that Tony's usual polite front doesn't appear to be in place, but he doesn't rise to it. “I prefer quiet,” he says instead, opening his mouth to suggest they go inside, share a drink, read a book, take a walk, do something to stop Tony staring at the street like he'd like to be hurtling towards it sans-suit, when Tony bites out a response.

“Me too, see you.”

And Steve just stares at him. 

“That was rude,” he says, and it's out before he can stop it.

“God, you're astute, aren't you?” Tony answers, and Steve doesn't go even though it's obvious Tony wants him to.

“Why do you do this?” he says, and Tony shakes his head a little. “Why, when I'm just trying to talk to you, do you just-”

“I don't have to justify myself to you,” Tony says darkly. “Back off, Cap.”

“What have you got against me?” Steve counters, and Tony changes immediately. 

He whips around to face Steve, stands up straighter, shoulders back, head held high, and Steve gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I hate you,” Tony says, and that hurts far more than Steve expects; he hears the words a moment before they register, and then his chest hurts.

“Mr-”

“Call me Mr Stark one more time, Rogers,” Tony says, in a voice that says Steve definitely shouldn't call him Mr Stark one more time.

“Then explain it to me,” Steve says. “What the heck did I ever do to you?”

Tony snorts, turns back to the street – broad shoulders in a tailored black tux and a dark head of hair styled to look like it never needs styling. And Steve thinks that's all he'll get from him until Tony speaks.

“You died,” he says. “And wasn't that good of you?”

Steve feels his mouth fall open. He wants to say something, tell Tony how unfair that is, get angry or something, but he doesn't. He can't. Because that hurts more than he thought he could hurt and he knows it was deliberate, that Tony's choosing words that will cut deep.

Tony's choosing a malicious route on purpose, ungratefulness of the highest order, said to make Steve feel small and inadequate, to belittle everything he stood for and to make out like his life was worth nothing, and Steve knows it's a ploy. He knows what Tony's trying to do and he knows that Tony doesn't actually feel that way, but it doesn't stop the wound opening up inside his chest and bleeding.

He can't remember the last time something hurt quite like that.

“What?” he whispers, and that's not what he wanted, but Tony laughs, cold and humorless and maybe Steve really should just go.

As in get gone and stay that way.

“My father loved you so much,” Tony says. “And when you died, that was it.”

Steve shakes his head. “That was what?” he asks, and the words are barely out of his mouth before Tony's speaking.

“My room was covered in Captain America crap since before I was born. It took me a long time to realize nobody decorated my room. He just put me in your room. And I never mattered because I wasn't you.”

“You-”

“He looked for you and looked for you and looked for you,” Tony says. “Day after day, year after year, went himself whenever he could, and it didn't matter that he ignored me. It...didn't matter he drank himself blind every day and turned his back on me every chance he got.”

Steve can feel his frown deepening, and he's not sure he wants to hear this, but he wants to know the whole point of this and he's not going to get it by walking away.

“I asked him about it once,” Tony says, some of the venom leaving his voice, replaced by the battle-aftermath weariness Steve's starting to recognise. “How it was ruining everything that all he thought about was you. And he said he didn't care. You'd saved so many lives doing what you did, what did one small life mean in comparison?”

“Tony-”

“I learned to hate you – I grew up surrounded by you, reading the stories, watching the films, everything I did, you were in the back of my mind. I loved you before I even understood what love was. And then he died and I hated him then.”

Tony turns around and looks at Steve, really looks at him and it doesn't matter they're not the same height. Steve feels small by comparison.

“I wasn't enough for him, his family wasn't enough for him. The money and the fame and the people who loved him, and all of it, we weren't enough. And I thought if I could just find you. If I could just find you and give the world something to mourn, some way to accept that you were gone, maybe I could be useful to him. Maybe I could finally do one Goddamn thing right. But no.”

Tony shakes his head, walks past Steve as he stares into his glass like Steve barely exists.

“And then I thought maybe if I could prove you were just human, maybe if I gave you a gravestone, he'd get past it and move on. And then he died.”

Steve almost wants to say he's sorry, but he doesn't know how Tony would take that.

“And I thought that was the end of it,” Tony says, “but I was always wrong when it came to Dad, wasn't I? Forget being Tony Stark, I was Howard's Son. And I was never as good as him, I could never be half the man he was, I was never going to be Howard.”

Tony spits the word like a curse and Steve takes a step forward, but he stops when Tony turns to face him.

“And then we found you,” Tony says. “And I thought maybe I could be useful to him. To his memory, whatever. But you weren't dead and I couldn't decide whether I hated you for that or not, because if Dad had been here, he'd have been all over it. He'd have forgotten I'd ever existed. But he wasn't, and there you were – the guy from my posters and I was going to get to meet you.”

Steve tries not to blush. That's an odd thing to think, he realizes, that Howard's son grew up with the stories surrounding him.

“And then I met you, and look at us.”

Steve shakes his head.

“I don't have anything against you-”

“The hell you don't,” Tony hisses. “So, what, you're telling me there's no reason we can't be buddies of the highest order? And yet we can't have a conversation without it ending in an argument. And I bet you never argued with Dad, now, did you?”

Steve doesn't know what to say to him.

“Well I'm not my father,” Tony says. “And the sooner you realize that, that better. Because my father loved you. I don't.”

He takes two steps to walk away and Steve's voice bursts out before he stops it, and he's almost glad of it. “And you blame me?”

Tony freezes, goes completely still, and he turns back with his eyes colder than Steve's ever seen them.

“I blame you? You're damn right I blame you. I blame you for all those years my father still loved you when he couldn't love me.” And he comes back those two steps to walk right up to Steve. “He drank, he yelled, he ignored, and people still tell me I'll never live up to him.”

Steve can feel his hands curl into fists, feel the chill on the back of his neck seeping into his blood.

“You can't blame me for this,” Steve says. “You can blame me for one hell of a lot but the way he treated you because of something I had no choice but to do? That's not on me.”

“Yeah, that's right, Cap. It can't have been him, he was always such a good friend, right? Better than I'll ever-”

“That's not what I said,” Steve answers. “None of that is what I said. But I'm going to say this: as far as I see, the only person who keeps comparing him to you is you. And if he was what you said he was, then it turns out I never knew him at all, and nobody has the right to compare you to that.”

“Tell them that.”

“I will,” Steve answers, watching confusion flit across Tony's face for a second. “You just point me in their direction and I'll go. Because he was a different man, Tony, you're a different man. If he ruined your life, there's only one person to blame for that.”

Tony takes one reeling step back, almost like Steve's hit him, and his eyes narrow.

“Right,” he says. “Me.”

And he spins on his heel and stalks off. 

Steve blinks at the empty space for a second, and then he's jogging after Tony.

“No! Howard!” Steve yells, getting around in front of him and thanking his stars that his strides are longer than Tony's. And Tony looks at him like he wants to kill him – Steve belatedly realizes Tony must think he was calling him Howard, so he keeps going. “Blame Howard,” he says, “it's Howard who's the one person! Not you - Jesus, Tony!”

Tony grinds his teeth for a moment.

“I'm blaming you,” Tony says instead. “Because I spent my childhood watching him looking for you. And when he died, I hated him for everything he'd done to me-”

“Tony-” 

“-And then I met you, and I talked to you and I worked with you and I fought with you and...y'know, I hated you even more than him.” Steve hears himself gasp and it doesn't save him from the look of absolute desolation that crosses Tony's face before he hides it behind his perpetual mask, even though he's still searching Steve's face with his eyes. “Because I suddenly knew I would have done exactly the same thing if I'd been standing in his place.”

Steve should let him go. When Tony walks away from him this time, Steve should let him go but he can't just let him go. “No, you wouldn't,” he says, and Tony slows to a halt maybe fifteen feet away.

When he looks back, he looks like he believes Steve not at all and he snorts just to make his point.

“How in hell would you know?”

“Because I know you and I knew him,” Steve says. “And not the way your damned shareholders did.”

Tony turns to face him because that's Tony all over, never turns his back, never walks away if the fight isn't over, and he stands there with his tailored suit and his hair fluttering in a stinging wind that's only a breeze on the street, if it even reaches the street at all. “And you think that gives you the right to tell me what to do?” he challenges.

“I think they're right, you'll never be Howard,” Steve answers. “Because you're twice the man he ever was.”

Tony's face literally drops for a moment, eyes wide, mouth hanging open, and then the mask is back, that stupid damned façade.

“You don't-”

“What do you want me to say to you?” Steve says, and when Tony doesn't answer, he keeps going because there's no way this can get worse. “If he did what you said he did, and you've got no reason to lie to me, then you're twice the man he ever was because you didn't turn out like him.”

“You didn't see me two years ago-”

“I know you were reckless,” Steve says. “Hell, you're reckless now. But I know you've lost things, I know you've been through hell and I know you're still here, and that the people you care about are still here.”

“Cap-”

“Look around you,” Steve says, holding out his hands, because they're standing in the middle of New York, which is still there because Tony saved them, and a party's going on downstairs, in the tower that Tony built, with people Tony might never admit are friends but who are friends nonetheless. “You care about everybody, Tony. Like those expeditions.”

“What?” Tony says, and he looks wary, like Steve's hit on something he wasn't expecting and that's fair enough, Tony doesn't know what Steve's about to say.

“SHIELD gave me the paperwork,” Steve says. “Years, decades, of history. Your company's expeditions.”

“My father's expeditions-”

“They weren't sent out as often as yours, his were whenever he could, but that was back then. Yours were all the time. All the time. And nice cover-story, by the way.”

“You don't know what you're-”

“Drilling for oil?”

Tony scoffs at him.

“What, you think I just kept sending-”

“Tell me you didn't.”

“I didn't,” Tony says, deadpan.

“Liar,” Steve says, because he's seen the paperwork. “You sent those expeditions out-”

“My father did,” Tony says, “if I missed the memo and kept them on payroll then it's only because I didn't care enough to check-”

“You signed every release form,” Steve says. “You signed every contract, I saw the photographs, the files, I saw the papers, Tony. You kept them on payroll, I know you did, and you did it on purpose.”

Tony shakes his head, as though he doesn't even want to listen, as though he's trying to shake Steve's words out of his mind.

“You're the best kind of man there is,” Steve says. “You're the kind of man who's willing to give up everything to save what he loves, instead of giving up what you should love to chase a dream.”

Tony snorts again.

“SHIELD lied to you,” he says. 

“SHIELD always lie to me,” Steve answers. “I asked J.A.R.V.I.S too.”

And Tony closes his eyes for a second. 

Steve knows that look, the moment you realize your mistake, the moment you know you were wrong. He saw it on the battlefield once or twice, the moment before someone took a bullet, the moment before someone got ambushed by a location they thought they'd cleared. 

Resignation in the face of defeat. I've lost, haven't I? 

“You bastard,” Tony says, like it's breaking his heart to say it. “I would have looked for you 'til the day I died. I loved you so much it hurt and I hated that. I hated that I wasn't any better than him; he loved you. And after all the pain that brought me, I loved you, too.” He sneers at Steve, leans forward to look at him and sneers at him. “You made me love you,” he whispers. “In spite of everything. And I will never forgive you for that.”

Steve shakes his head, holding his hand out to Tony, willing him to understand. “Then don't, Tony,” he says, and he can feel the wind around them. “But you need to know you're so much more than him, in so many ways.”

“Name one,” Tony says, and he turns around and walks away again.

And Steve's after him before he's made the conscious decision to move, one step, another, a third and then he's grabbing Tony by the back of his suit and hauling him around and Tony gasps, curls up, lifts his free hand to try to stave off the punch he thinks is coming. But Steve doesn't hit him.

Steve kisses him.

It's hard and bruising and their teeth click and Tony freezes the second Steve makes contact, he knows, he can feel it, and it's a mistake. He never meant this like this but he can't help it.

He pulls away just as harshly, and Tony's mouth is closed, his eyes wide.

“You found me,” Steve says, holding Tony by his shoulders.

Because, after all those years, even it's because Howard died, even if it's because Howard couldn't look for a dead man if he was dead himself, Tony isn't Howard, Steve never felt like this for Howard, and if this ruins everything then at least maybe Tony will finally understand.

“You,” Steve says again, trying not to shake Tony.

And they stand there like that for a few seconds that feel like hours, the wind still picking up around them, whipping hair and clothes like they're made of nothing and it must be that that's making Steve's eyes sting and not the fact that Tony isn't speaking, isn't moving, is barely breathing at all.

Steve closes his eyes when he can't look into Tony's any more and he shakes his head as he lets go of Tony's shoulders. 

He lifts his head and opens his eyes and steps around Tony to walk back inside. Tony wants to be left alone, Tony will probably need days to recover from this and maybe, if they're incredibly lucky, they'll still be able to function as a team with Tony knowing how Steve feels and Steve knowing Tony doesn't feel the same.

But he doesn't get that far. 

“Wait,” and he barely hears it, might not have heard it at all if his hearing weren't so super-human, but he hears it all the same and there's a tug on his sleeve a moment later.

And when he turns, Tony meets him, arms around his neck, mouth against his own with a soft sound rising up from the back of his throat as his glass shatters ten feet away where he's thrown it

Steve settles his hands on Tony's hips once the shock has worn off, once the relief eases into his blood, and he slides his hands around to Tony's back a few second later, one at the base of his spine and the other between his shoulder blades. And of course Tony's a good kisser, he's experienced and confident, but nothing really prepares Steve for the way it floods through him and warms him through the cold. 

“I've loved you since before I knew what love was,” Tony whispers when they break for air, one hand against the side of Steve's face to stroke his cheek with one thumb, searching his face like he's still not convinced Steve's real. 

Steve only nods, lifting his hand from Tony's shoulder blades to cradle the back of his head instead.

“I love you too,” he says, and Tony's body sags as he tips his head forward to rest it against Steve's chest.

They should go inside. They will go inside, and Steve will spend the next week inside with Tony if that's what Tony wants, official functions or no. 

But not yet, they're not moving yet. For now, Tony seems content to stand here in the wind, in the city they defended, on the tower he built, with the man he saved. And Steve's happy to go along with that, loving the man who saved him.


End file.
